When a user of several machines wishes to operate all of the machines on which he wants to work, he inevitably must identify himself on each machine through a session management user interface. Different possibilities, corresponding to different levels of security and to different levels of user traceability, are offered to a user to identify himself on the machines on which he wishes to work.
The least secured of these possibilities resides in the inputting of an identifier and a password into the session management user interface. A more secured solution, enabling better identification of the user, resides in the use of a smart card belonging to the user; the smart card is inserted into a specific reader and the session management user interface then invites the user to enter a PIN code to be identified. An even more secured solution ensuring even better user traceability (smart cards may be stolen or loaned), resides in the use of biometric systems: The user is identified by means, for example, of a fingerprint.
If improvements therefore occurred in terms of securing access to machines and user traceability, a problem with the ease of identification of users remains. In fact, regardless of the type of identification operation (entering an identifier and password, using a smart card or a biometric system), it is necessary for the user to carry out the identification operation on all of the stations that he wishes to use. As these identification operations occur at least on a daily basis, their repeated character quickly becomes tiresome to the user and unnecessarily wastes time. In addition, the use of smart cards and/or biometric systems may necessitate the installation of specific readers or sensors on each of the machines intended to be used by the user. This tiresome character connected to the identification operations is also found for other operations executed by means of the session management user interface; this is particularly the case for session locking operations, session closing operations or else session reinitializing (rebooting) operations.